March 07, 2011

For about 2 weeks in February, the temperature here at The Ranch only got above freezing 3 times. The maintenance crew covered the greens to keep them from freezing and killing the Tif Eagle grass plants. For the most part, it worked well but for a couple of days, the wind played havoc with the covers.

Several of the tarps worked loose in the wind and a few of the greens were partially uncovered for about 48 hours; just enough time to stress one of them severely. That green is being partially covered today with the hope the black tarp will heat up the soil enough to help the grass recover.

I never really gave tarps much thought but as we've been playing the past couple of weeks, the difference between the turf that was covered and the turf that wasn't is dramatic. From this picture, the area that was covered is dramatically greener.